The invention relates to the making of foods for animals, and more particularly to improvements in methods of making foods for domestic animals, such as dogs and cats. Still more particularly, the invention relates to improvements in methods of making moistenable or wettable pet foods.
It is well known to make moistenable or wettable foods (particularly for dogs or cats and hereinafter called pets for short) from a mixture containing cereals, legumes, meat, fish and/or vegetables. An important advantage of moistenable pet foods is that, in contrast to moist or wet foods, they need not be confined in cans. Disposal of empty cans creates many ecological problems and contributes to the cost of pet foods. Furthermore, the weight of a can which contains wet food is a multiple of the weight of the edible contents without moisture. Moreover, it is not necessary to add one or more preservatives which are standard ingredients of canned moist pet foods.
Another important advantage of pet foods which are sold in dry condition is that they can be stored for long periods of time upon opening of bags, envelopes or other containers which are used for confinement of such foods. Thus, the purchaser of a bag of pet food which can be served dry, or with water or milk or another liquid added, can withdraw a desired quantity of food and the withdrawn quantity is thereupon mixed with a liquid prior to serving. The remainder of the food can remain in the bag for future use in contrast to canned wet pet foods.
A further important advantage of pet foods which are stored in dry condition is that such foods can be stored in bags or other deformable containers of any desired size and/or shape which is highly desirable for the purposes of convenient storage and/or transport. The containers can be made of paper or of any other readibly decomposable material with attendant elimination of ecological problems as well as with considerable savings for transport and the possibility to reduce the dimensions of storing facilities.
A drawback of presently known dry pet foods which contain cereals and/or legumes is that their cost is rather high, particularly because their preparation involves a thermal treatment, for example, roasting and subsequent pressing to form particles of desired size and/or shape. Such thermal treatment affects the taste and certain other desirable characteristics of the thus obtained dry pet foods.
Another drawback of presently known dry pet foods is that their composition enables an animal (e.g., a dog or a cat) to select from the mixture those fragments (e.g., pieces of dried meat or fish) which the animal prefers over the other constituents (such as particles of dried cereals, pieces of vegetables and/or legumes). This deprives the pet of a desirable balanced diet because the animal avoids the consumption of constituents which are of considerable nutritional-physiological importance but are less favored than certain other constituents.